Spirit Bear

Gallery: WildlifePosted October 4, 2013211 views8 comments

In mid-September, I spent five full days in BC's Great Bear Rain Forest. On two separate occasions, I saw this Spirit Bear. On that first day, for a full hour and a half, we had prime position to watch and photograph as it gorged on salmon.

The sighting and position were better than I could have hoped for, but in my excitement, I botched my settings - mainly the exposure so most of my images have blown out highlights. It was painful when I got back home and started working on my photos. This particular image is not as bad as others.

I welcome your suggestions, especially how to compensate for the over exposure. Who knows if I will get as good a sighting as this again.

D800E 200-400mm ISO 3200 f.5 SS 1/400

Thank you.

Butch

Comments

8 comments

Comment posted by Max Waugh on October 4, 2013 at 6:11 PM

Butch, you rescued this one fairly well it seems. Frankly, you're lucky. I was there a week or two ahead of you and we had really poor luck with the spirit bears, so seeing them twice is a treat.

As for exposures, I'm not sure what you typically opt for, metering-wise. I know some folks prefer to spot meter. I was shooting in evaluative most of the time, and constantly was at -1/3 to -1 throughout the trip. But as mentioned, I never did have one of the white bears this close this time.

Max

Registered on September 26, 2008, 428 Posts, 2329 Comments

Comment posted by Gary Gulash on October 4, 2013 at 11:11 PM

Hi Butch, congratulations on your good fortune to photograph these revered bears. Looks like this would be a challenging situation to shoot, suspect your histogram looked like a "U". I'm not a big "chimper" but glancing at the histogram periodically when the action slows to ensure your exposure is in the ballpark is something I try to force myself to do. Nikon metering is pretty decent in the newest cameras imho and with practice (and the aforementioned glance at the histogram) can usually tell when compensation is needed. The fur looks a bit over in the highlights but not too bad at all. I'm not aware of anything that can be done if you have grossly overexposed the highlights in a raw file, a double rye and coke might help in this situation !?!

Registered on January 28, 2005, 879 Posts, 12098 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Archer on October 5, 2013 at 4:24 AM

Looks great on my end, nice foraging behavior you captured of this rare beautiful bear. The fur detail looks pretty darned good to me.

Sweet One Butch

Registered on October 28, 2004, 222 Posts, 6683 Comments

Comment posted by Ken Watkins on October 5, 2013 at 5:08 AM

Butch,
Certainly on my monitor the whites do not look blown, I am presuming that the red tint is normal.
If you want to reduce the whites a little further and have PS then I would experiment with a slight touch of highlight reduction using the Shadows/Highlights tool, which can be OK if not used at high levels.

Registered on December 15, 2010, 1537 Posts, 4877 Comments

Comment posted by Daniel & Loana on October 5, 2013 at 5:56 AM

Great moment and great shot.
D&L

Registered on October 7, 2008, 166 Posts, 3044 Comments

Comment posted by William Bickle on October 5, 2013 at 7:39 PM

Hello Butch

Fine image with interaction.

I have used a meter compensation of -67 for most Spirit Bears & depending on if bear fills your screen maybe more compensation when surrounding backgrounds are dark as in the gbr.

Registered on June 13, 2011, 183 Posts, 1702 Comments

Comment posted by Lon Sharp on October 6, 2013 at 12:42 PM

Whites look pretty good to me, and I admire the detail in the fur, as at the water line. I would add a bit of sharpness just the nose. The surroundings feel a little too dark to my eye, maybe from retrieving highlights on the bear. Did you make selective or global adjustments?

Registered on December 9, 2007, 258 Posts, 9892 Comments

Comment posted by Stephen Kaluski on October 6, 2013 at 3:26 PM

Butch, reduce the blue cast by about -50, that is your biggest issue in the image.

The Blacks are slightly clipped but nothing that cannot be resolved, just drop the Highlight slider, open the shadows a fraction, but watch for noise, drop the whites a real fraction, a walk in the park. Fur and detail are fine, but if you want to add anything then adding some Mid Tone adjustment, but that is not just a slider adjustment people think it is, LOL!

TFS
Steve

Registered on March 25, 2007, 189 Posts, 1064 Comments